View Essex Business Forum Members

Our membership represents the very best of local business. Our vetting process is thorough; each member must come highly recommended, and remain so by delivering continually outstanding work for members, their contacts, clients and friends.

View Essex Business Forum Members

Our membership represents the very best of local business. Our vetting process is thorough; each member must come highly recommended, and remain so by delivering continually outstanding work for members, their contacts, clients and friends.

Stand-in Chairman today but still the same high quality networking meeting as usual

Brian Painter of Pilgrim Hypnotherapy (doing his best impersonation of Aidan Squire) chaired confidently, and guided us all through the proceedings.

The meeting started on a real positive note with two more new members being inducted and welcomed to our rapidly growing group. Two new visitors were also very enthusiastic and showed potential for us to further expand. With every new member the group has the better and more powerful EBF becomes for the members. The only challenge that we have is that we’re gonna need to get some bigger tables if we grow too large!

Education Presentation

We were all reminded of the value of quality by David Plumley of Integrate Networks. In his engaging education slot David explained how vital it is to hold true to our professionalism. Not be tempted to de-value our services by competing on price. Instead to price fairly, for the high-quality service each of our businesses provide. Providing a flawless service, even if it is priced a little more than others on the block, will deliver more long term value to the client, and more referrals as a result.

The 60 Second Round

The 60 second round had some interesting topics this week. With Mark Scarff of LMS Property Solutions showcasing some of his recent architectural joinery projects, including bespoke garden gates, panelling, storage and internal doors.

New member Cathy Neat of The Willow Centre in Chelmsford gave us an insight into the wide and varied clients who hire the centre’s meeting rooms on a weekly basis. For anything from occasional desk space in The Hub, to board meetings, training and mediation.

Kim Redwood-Lee of Redwood Clarke Book Keepers reminded us all of the expertise and knowledge of her 7-strong team. Available to help business owners finally deal with un paid invoices, to organise payroll, systemize sale invoices and keep book keeping errors at bay.

Brian Painter of Pilgrim Hypnotherapy told a heart-warming story of a patient who, with the help of regression and hypnotherapy, was feeling far less fearful of hospitals.

Finally, Kevin Radford at RMK Insurance addressed cyber liability. In the wake of the high-profile NHS cyber-attacks he asked whether small businesses should consider insuring against the risk of cyber-attack. His view, if your livelihood depends on the ability of your website to perform then it’s something you should consider. And he’s always available for a coffee and a chat!

This weeks statistics and points of note

New member Lee Scarff of LMS Plumbing and Heating topped the performance league, with Paul Booth of Booth & Co Accountants in second, and David Plumley of Integrate Networks in third.

John Freeman of The One Stop Property Shop handy man service scooped the 60 second award – with a funny story about a recent job that helped save a customer’s marriage!

Matt Barry of Blue Serif gave an outstanding presentation, showcasing the range of brand design services he offers, including branding, print design, creative design of websites and apps and exhibition stands.

£35k of business passed this week – a smoking hot figure!

28 new referral opportunities this week – an excellent month so far!

We welcomed two visitors to the meeting. Stuart Harris from NRG Brokers, a commercial energy consultant who helps businesses to negotiate better rates from their energy providers. And, Christine Wakeman, who specialises in helping businesses get the most from apprentice schemes and to access funds available from European Social Funding for training of staff.

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Business Passed Between All Members This Week

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Referral Opportunies Passed Between Members This Week

10 minute presentation by Matt Barry

Matt Barry’s 10 Minutes was seriously impressive. With outstanding examples of the brand design projects he’s worked on with his team at Blue Serif. Including, branding, print design, email design, video & multimedia, creative design of websites, app design and exhibition stand design. He explained that the success of his design agency was as much down to the quality of it’s creative, as the business focus it takes. Enabling them to build and maintain strong, ongoing relationships with clients beyond the first project.

To discover more about Blue Serif and the fully integrated digital design service offered from the Brentwood based agency visit www.blueserif.co.uk

Really lively meeting with a great buzz and feel about it. well done Matt, a polished performance reflecting well on the quality services your company offers, well done Jill in picking up the baton mid-meeting for the blog, which again shows how good you are at “words” !

I would like to thank David Plumley acting as my warm up guy for my scintillating 60 seconds on Cyber Liability . I know we say this every week but these meetings are enjoyable as well as very productive. We have a very good group of dedicated business people . A great 10 minutes from Matt this morning. Well done everybody and thanks for the 5 referrals received this morning.

Well done Matt. Your excellent presentation personified you and your company. Welcome to Mark and Serena.
Thank you once again to Jill for stepping in. Something that we probably all take a little bit for granted is the work done by Aidan, Scott, Brian, Terry, Jill and Matt often on a weekly basis – thank you.

Excellent yet again this morning – new members inducted, two new visitors and lots and lots of business done and referrals passed.
Networking works!!
Good luck at the awards tonight & tomorrow night Matt.

The fact that Matt attracts clients even further away than Billericay indicates that he is the guy to go to for creative inspiration!
Thank you ,Jill, for wording the blog, it was so good that I’m going to allow you to write again next week! Well done to the recruitment team and others for attracting good quality visitors. Well done,John Boy, for scooping the Oscar Let’s keep the buzz going!

lol thanks Brian, really enjoyed this week’s meeting, thank you all for the work! I never doubted for a moment this would work for me, and will for others.
Great presentation Matt, well done, you deserve an award and recognition for your work, good luck for tonight’s awards and tomorrows!
Jill, very well done stepping in like that to sort the blog, you guys are just great to be around, thank you all.
As for the guests, I hope you felt as welcome as I did 6 weeks ago, EBF is a great forum to help your business along!

Essex Business Forum is an association of professional business people and owners of established and reputable SMEs based in Essex which represents every trade and profession, and with the addition of an extended network of businesses in highly specialist fields.

We run weekly business networking groups every Thursday morning in Brentwood, plus other regular events and networking meetings.

We're always looking for new members to join, so if you are interested then come along to one of our meetings.